


The Wolf

by RJMeta



Series: AWH-verse [5]
Category: A Hat in Time (Video Game)
Genre: (side note - that needs to be a tag. the fact it isn't is a travesty), 5+1 Things, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hefty use of headcanons, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, cuddle piles, not so much for the characters as for the readers, or. well. 4+1+1 things.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:01:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27357700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RJMeta/pseuds/RJMeta
Summary: 4 times the Conductor dreamed of dying and two times he didn't.
Relationships: The Conductor & Hat Kid (A Hat in Time)
Series: AWH-verse [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1968832
Comments: 3
Kudos: 40





	The Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> fic song: [The Wolf by SIAMÉS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lX44CAz-JhU)
> 
> this fic involves a couple headcanons and references to the comic [Nitrate Burn](https://modmad.tumblr.com/post/612937456686448640/oh-boy-this-was-not-something-i-planned-to-make) by the wonderful [Modmad on Tumblr](https://modmad.tumblr.com/), who is an inspiration for my work and everything i do, so go read that if you haven't already. there's a couple minor changes to the comic with this version of the conductor - namely that the time between his wife leaving and then him coming up with the idea for Pyre is much shorter, and that they only have the one kid rather than three.
> 
> (also i have another fic planned around Pyre, so watch this space for that.)
> 
> also! also also. i'm gonna be attempting nanowrimo this year! this is my third attempt - the first time i tried for the full 50k, the second i tried for 25k, neither times i hit my goal, so this year i'm going for 12.5k which i think is doable! last year i got to something like 13 or 14k, so if i can get that far again i'll be happy.
> 
> ... pretty sure this is the longest author's note i've ever written, ha ha.

The first time he dreamed of dying, he was twelve years old.

His mum had been crying that day. The painting on the wall, the one his grandpappy had made, was gone, as was his dad. He hadn’t understood what she meant by that - he’d come back at some point, right? But he understood she was upset, and he understood the painting was gone, and he understood that as long as the painting was gone, so too would his dad be.

That night was colder, the warmth his father emitted missing from the house. He burrowed deeper into his nest, pulling his limbs in as close as he could, feathers puffed against the night chill. He ran warmer than most, but that only made the cold worse, a stark distinction between him and everything else. The chattering of his jaw eventually lulled him into uneasy sleep, thoughts drifting from him into darkness.

_He was cold. He was cold and it was dark. There was a spark in front of him, so warm, so bright, flickering like it was beckoning him closer. He didn’t realise he’d reached out until it brushed against his talons, curling up his arm, gently burning the sleeves of his sleep-shirt until it was engulfed, covering him in that bright warmth. Woodsmoke filled his nose, the acrid scent of burning oil and pigment making him grimace. It was warm, growing hotter, uncomfortably so - he wanted to be free, to join the smoke curling up through the sky! Why couldn’t he be free to fly? Why was he stuck? Why--?!_

He jolted, shaken awake by his frantic mother, coughing through the thick smoke that had filled his room while he was sleeping. She was crying, running her wings over him, not even wincing at the heat he was putting off. Seemingly satisfied after a moment, she swept him up and held him, her tears dripping into steam off his feathers.

(The implications of the dream wouldn’t hit until he was a few years older, standing over a pair of graves in a funeral suit, crushing a bouquet of lilies in his talons. The old oil painting had stayed gone, his father with it; now his mother, too. Placing the lilies down (yellow for her, red for him), he fixed his hat upon his head and ignored the smoke curling off him as he walked away.)

* * *

The second time he dreamed of dying, he was thirty one.

His movie had been a resounding success - the riskiest gamble he’d ever made, paying off in dividends. His career was soaring, his reputation with it; by all accounts, he should have been ecstatic.

Instead, he was slumped on the floor of a forest, ash littering the leaffall in front of him, an empty movie reel case cast aside behind him.

She was gone. She was gone and he had killed her. Blearily, he looked up, eyeing the burnt-out remains of the bonfire with the partially-melted rocks that lined its edges. The last remnants of the brilliant, beautiful flashover that had been his wife. An idea was sparking in the back of his mind, glowing like coals as he staggered to his feet, stumbling over the ring of stones to stand in the centre of the burn. He seized that heat, seized that warmth, striking his talons together like flint, desperation stoking his inner flame. If he could get this spark to catch, maybe he could join her--!

But his hands fell limply to his sides, the smiling face of his daughter flaring up in his mind’s eye. She was just twelve - a scant few months older than… than…

(He hadn’t envied his mother back then, when he realised the weight of what she’d had to do. Now, he was wondering how she’d managed to do it at all. Collapsing back to his knees, he buried his face in his talons and screamed.)

* * *

The third time he dreamed of dying, he was forty two.

Forty two. He was sure the number was cursed. Supposedly the answer to everything, but all it had given him so far was heartbreak. His precious train, derailed and almost destroyed. His ex-wife, gone with a ring thrown back in his face and a venomous scream embedded in his heart. And now, his daughter, the light of his life, the last part of his first wife that he had left--

He muffled his sobs into feathers and fabric, curling up tighter on his bunk in the caboose. He hadn’t been there, curse him. He should have been there. Smoke hung thick in the air as he cried himself to sleep.

_It was dark, in that hospital room, the only sounds being laboured breathing and that pecking incessant **beeping**. He couldn’t move, stuck to the floor outside the door, watching helplessly as the beeping slowed, each gasp becoming more and more strained. No words were spoken, but he could feel the accusations cutting into him nonetheless. He fought to move, to twitch even the tip of a talon-- he had to get in there--!_

_A long, unending whine cut him off, removing the floor from underneath him. All of a sudden, he could move, stumbling into the doorway in his haste to get to her side. Her hands were cold in his, all signs of life already wiped away like overexposure._

He woke with a cry, voice hoarse from screaming.

No one was there.

Curling into a ball, he buried his face in his knees and wept.

(Absently, a part of him wondered if it was his fate to lose everything he loved.)

* * *

The fourth time he dreamed of dying, he was fifty nine.

Everything was set up. The owls had already moved all the explosives onto the train. The detonator had been wired up and put in place. He hadn’t bothered turning the cameras off - the footage could serve as the final nail in his coffin when they condemned him for his bastardry. Distantly, he knew that he was signing the death certificates of any owls not brave enough to jump off the train, and probably the few who were, too, but at that moment in time, he just couldn’t bring himself to care.

This would be his grand finale. The majority of the explosives were under the front console - he’d be atomised in the blast, which would save anyone from having to clean up his corpse. He’d already recorded a message to play when someone pulled the detonator, so that was that handled. All he had to do now was wait.

The train rumbled beneath him. It was almost over. He breathed out, letting his vision blur.

The click from behind him seemed to cut through him like a bullet in the stillness, the explosives shutting off harmlessly. Turning on his heel, he met the gaze of the little hatted lass, pain and fear and confusion blurred behind a thick layer of tears. For a moment, they just stared at each other.

Then he snapped back to attention, reeling out some birdpeck spiel that he forgot as soon as it left his beak. Rage simmered under his feathers, but beneath it all, there was only despair.

(He’d look back on that memory later, on the night of the Awards. He’d curse himself out for being so pecking _stupid_ and _selfish_. It would be the start of a new change, one for the better. But in the moment, all he could do was collapse to his knees and sob.)

* * *

(He didn't need to dream of dying at sixty.)

(His body lay cold on the forest floor, unheeding of the small hands trying to shake him awake again.)

* * *

He didn't dream of dying at sixty one.

The day had been one of the best in recent memory - a lazy day in spent with his kids and grandkids, culminating in a sleep-pile in the guest bedroom he always occupied when he stayed over, laying on his back with all his grandkids and his daughter all using him as a pillow. He knew that they wouldn’t be able to do this much longer, with how fast the grandkids were growing, but for the moment he took solace in having most of his family in the same room, stretching his hearing to catch his son-in-law puttering about in the kitchen. For once, he felt light, untroubled by any of the thousand things that usually ate at him.

Smiling, he drew his family closer, nuzzling gently at the top of Hat Kid’s head. Sleepily, she roused, blinking blearily at him.

“Mmm… Dad?”

Smiling wider, he ran his talons through her hair, chuckling slightly as she melted against him with a happy purr.

“Go back tae sleep, lassie. Everythin’s alright.”

Humming out an agreement, she snuggled closer to him, quickly drifting off. Laying back himself, he sighed happily, unable to quite stop the sound from curling into a yawn. Here, in the soft quiet, watching the last rays of the sun dip below the horizon, his family around him, he could sleep easy.

So he did.


End file.
